Tuesday, I had fully expected I will burn myself for attempting to play with fire, as I quietly stressed waiting for the time of my video shoot with my instructor.
I mean, seriously! Just the thought of eating fire made me cringed when it was first suggested to me.
At around 2:30 p.m., I was outside for a quick break when I mentioned to a couple of co-workers I would be doing a video on fire eating.
“What did you say, you get fired?” she asked me quite concerned.
“Nope, I was going to get lessons on how to safely eat fire,” I said laughing.
“Oh I thought you said you get fired,” she said. “Are you nervous?”
I admitted I was concerned I might burn myself in the process, but I committed to doing the video and although I knew I could back out the last minute, I was still stressed over the thought of putting something fiery on my skin, let alone my mouth.
“Think of it this way, you will do it because I won’t. And since I want to know what it’s like and I’m sure others too, you have to let us know what the experience is like,” she said.
That’s a good way to put it. There are so many things that people are curious about, but they’re too chicken to try it themselves. So I get to do them so I can share what the experience was like.
“But do I really have to burn myself, so I can tell others it’s not good to play with fire?” I asked myself as I went back to my desk, still stressed.
Just after 6 p.m. the tension I was feeling was heightened as my instructor, Carisa Hendrix arrived.
She was extremely apologetic for being late, but it actually worked out because the videographer had to quickly check out a potentially explosive story that ended up to be a big nothing.
Carisa was a real trouper. She carried all her fire-eating paraphernalia in a wooden box and a bag and I didn’t realize she had to take the public transit to get to the Sun building. Had I known I would have picked her up.
After a quick private lesson on how to properly handle fire, I was all set to try it.
Something was strikingly calming about her demeanour. She chatted me up and put me in a relax mood.
I almost forgot I was actually going to play with fire, and not figuratively, quite literally.
“Your eyes should focus on the flame and your ears on my instructions,” she told me.
“You have to follow where the flame goes because then you know it’s not going to burn anything,” she said.
First, she asked me to touch the fire with my fingers.
My reluctance was all consumed, I simply followed her instruction.
I didn’t burn my fingers. I was ecstatic. It also didn’t feel hot at all, but I could see a flicker of flame dancing between my thumb, index and middle fingers.
She then taught me how to transfer the flame from one torch to another using my fingers.
I did it successfully and by that time I was howling in a pleasurable joy that I could actually do what she demonstrated to me.
The tricks were getting more complicated and daring.
I passed touching the fire, and was about to move to teasing my tongue with the lit torch.
At that point, I thought, What exactly do I have to gain if I continue. What do I have to lose? Perhaps my playing with fire should end with my finger because I really didn’t want to suffer from facial burns.
But the flame was extremely tempting and I knew I’d be forever guessing what it must have been like if I were to bail out.
I felt like a moth that was ready to die and plunged into the flame.
Carefully following Carisa’s lead I tentatively placed the blazing torch on my tongue.
There was no tingling, just a tad of heat. Rubbing a freshly cut red Thai pepper on my tongue would produce more heat, I thought.
And just as Carisa had cautioned me earlier, once I get the hang of it, it would be difficult to stop.
So the next trick was to transfer the flame from a lit torch to my tongue to another torch.
I was getting cocky at this point and felt like I’m a fanless and gigless rock star.
I just transferred the flame from a torch to my tongue to another torch, when the joy of such fiery success was rudely interrupted by the activated fire alarm.
Yes, my fire-eating adventure triggered the alarm in the whole building and halted people from their busy work.
My co-workers came down and checked on what was happening.
Carisa was extremely apologetic. She said it has not happened to her before.
I also felt bad.
It was awkward and noisy.
The annoying bell went on for at least 30 minutes, before somebody from maintenance was able to come to the building and shut off the alarm.
But the show must go on or at least must be finished.
Having regained composure, I asked Carisa if we could continue the video shoot outdoors.
She obliged. After showing me more tricks we concluded playing with fire, like nothing happened.
Eating fire is for adults only and if you’re interested check out LearnFireEating
